House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa visits Meet the Press to update David Gregory on the latest developments in his panel’s investigation into the Benghazi attacks.

Meet the Press

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>>this sunday, the battle over bengsz. did the
white house
play with terrorism or is this a rev the up attack machine against the president and
hillary clinton
. this week, a career diplomat challenges the official line on
benghazi
in riveting detail.

>>i received a call from the
prime minister of libya
. i think it's the saddest
phone call
i've ever had in my life. he told me that ambassador stevens
passed away
.

>>and house republicans aren't about to stop asking questions. is the
administration
holding back?

>>the
white house
has done everything possible to block access to the information that would outline the truth.

>>this morning, my exclusive interview with the republican leading the charge, chairman of the
house oversight committee
, congressman derril
issa
of california. then the man who insists that charges of a cover-up are pure fiction. former ambassador
thomas pickering
who led the independent investigation into the attack, he joins me. plus, response from democratic senator and chair of the
senate intelligence committeedianne feinstein
. later our roundtable on the political impact of
benghazi
and the other news. the immigration fight, the economy as the
stock market
takes off, and the alarming number of
sexual assaults
in the military. what should be done?

>>>from nbc news in washington, and the world's longest-running
television program
, this is "meet the press" with
david gregory
.

>>and good sunday morning. the president and his
administration
under fire now on two fronts, news just this morning in the developing country over the
irs
targeting of conservative
tea party
groups. the associated press reporting this sunday that will senior
irs
officials knew of the targeting as early as
2011
, contradicting recent public denials by the commissioner. in the growing consciousal investigation over the
administration
's response to the
september 11th attacks
in
benghazi
, libya has the
white house
now on the defensive. that's where we'll start right would you now with the republican leading the investigation into these matters, the chairman of the
house oversight committee
, derril
issa
.

>>obviously this is an important issue to the
american people
.

>>let's get into it then because i want to know where you're going. congressional leaders including yourself are calling on the
white house
to release more e-mails related to all of the communication and reaction to the
benghazi
attacks the very next day. what are these e-mails? what's in them, and do you think the
white house
is holding something back?

>>david
, there are three zing areas that haven't been answered. first of all, a full understanding of why urgent requests repeatedly for more
security
before the attackses were denied. we've had statements that it wasn't about money, but at the same time, people are asking for more
security
. they got less. the british ambassador has two assassination attempts, and yet we keep a facility that was not able to withstand even a few minutes of attack. then those seven hours while the attack was going on, was the response correct, could it have been better? why weren't things at least tried or revved up to be tried? those are important questions. then afterwards, how could you change
talking points
12 times from what seems to be relatively right to the what seems to be completely wrong?

>>why don't i start there because in the immediate aftermath, there's both intelligence and there's internal
administration
communication, basically saying that a
terrorist group
appears to be involved, right? ansar al sharia. there's communication about this in the
state department
but those are removed ultimately for the
talking points
in preparation for members of
congress
and for
susan rice
to appeared here and on other sunday morning
talk shows
. and steve hayes reported about this in the
weekly standard
and writes about some of the changes. the official who changed it at the
state department
, the
weekly standard
confirmed was
victoria nuland
. worried that members of
congress
would use the points to criticize the
state department
for not paying attention to agency warnings about
security
in bengsz. in an attempt to address,
cia
officials cut all references to ansar al sharia. but in a follow-up e-mail, new land wrote that the problem remain that her superiors, he she didn't say which ones were unhappy. the changes she wrote did not resolve all my issues. you suggest she's playing politics with the aftermath of all of this. but chairman, didn't the
cia
and the
intelligence community
have the final word on what the accurate
talking points
would be?

>>not at all. if you keep pushing back, you get a first report from the
cia
, that's their report. then you push back. you get a little different. you puck back, you get a little different. that's manipulating the
cia
to get the truth.

>>these are the facts?

>>the fact is, there was a fact witness, his name was ambassador stevens. he said greg, we're under attack to his number two. that was the definitive statement from the ambassador on the ground before he was murdered. you have a fact witness. and you follow that up with fact witness after fact witness. so to blame the
cia
is a convenient truth. the real truth is, the people who were there in
tripoli
and in
benghazi
knew this was a
terrorist attack
from the get-go. that's been said under oath. and that's the reason that we
need to know
more about how these got changed.

>>chairman, my reporting of the immediate aftermath of this talking to
administration
officials is that ci a director
david petraeus
made it clear when he briefed top officials that there was a spontaneous element to this, that it was not completely known that this was a
terrorist attack
right away. you don't give any credence to the notion that there was some
fog of war
, that there were conflicting circumstances what about what went on here?

>>david petraeus
said what the
administration
wanted him to say is the indication, ambassador
pickering
heard what the
administration
wanted to hear. the only under oath
people i know
about who have said what happened on the ground that day was, in fact, before our committee just on wednesday, and more importantly, you know, when "face the nation" had
susan rice
saying one thing and the
president of libya
saying just the opposite, that should have been a wake-up call, a real wake-up call that there was something wrong because we were effectively calling the
president of libya
either incompetent or a liar.
either way
, diplomatically, we went down the wrong road. you reconcile with the government that is hosting you before you go on national television and make that kind of claim.

>>what is the
big picture
here? you're saying that
administration
officials are these political advisors to the president, are these nonpolitical appointees bullied the
cia
into saying what the political advisors in the
white house
wanted him to say? is that your charge.

>>david
, we're not making charges.

>>you justified said.

>>they had to back down from what they wanted to say and
david petraeus
said what the
white house
wanted to say.

>>those
talking points
are not the starting
talking points
, they're the ending
talking points
. we are not accusing who changed that. the fact is, we want the facts. we're entitled to the facts. the
american people
were effectively lied to for a period of about a month. that's important to get right.

>>just want to be clear what you
believe the lie
was.

>>this was a
terrorist attack
from the get-go. the attack succeeded very quickly. in no small part because the consulate or the diplomatic facility in
benghazi
was denied the kind of support it needed or,
quite frankly
, the decision 0 leave which might have been just as good.
either way
, they were, in fact, covering up an easy attack that succeeded that was about -- was from the get-go really about a
terrorist attack
. it was never about a video. so when we look at what we know, the question is, how do we prevent a facility from being underprotected? how do we respond better if we have seven hours or more of an attack, and how do we get the truth out. there's three ekz sections all of which the
american people
are entitled to, and so far,
jay carney
has said a lot of things that aren't believable even to you and the rest of the press. we've had testimony by people under oath that i think are pretty believable, and i know they're accountable for what they say.

>>who else do you want to hear from in the days and the weeks ahead?

>>well, on monday i'll be sending ambassador
pickering
a request for deposition. we're going to want to go through at length how the arb reached its conclusions, who it interviewed and why we believe there are --

>>the accountability review board.

>>right. i mean, ultimately if that got it right, then we can put this to a rest. we believe it was insufficient. we believe that it's likely that they did not interview all the people. we have one witness who said i wanted to be interviewed and i wasn't. one of the questions that came out of our hearing, gregory hicks, the act being ambassador has not been allowed to look at the classified arb report even though he is the foremost authority on what was happening in
tripoli
and what the communication was.

>>we'll talk to him to get some of his response. i want to have you respond to something else. former
president bush
gave an interview this week in which he talked about e-mail in the
executive branch
particularly his own. i want to play that for you and then ask you about it.

>>we learned that i didn't e-mail anybody when i was president. i -- i was fearful of congressional intrusion into my e-mails. so which is kind of sad really because a lot of history's lost when presidents are nervous about their personal papers being subpoenaed.

>>that was a couple of weeks ago. congressional intrusion was his fear. now, what we're talking about with regard to
benghazi
does not involve a president's e-mail but it involves e-mails in what's called the interagency process, and what your critics have asked is, are you reading into something that is not there? discussions about what happened, about what the various inputs of information are? are you overreading?

>>well, we're obviously having a debate in
federal court
because of
fast and furious
in which the
executive branch
lied to
congress
and then refuses to deliver the inagency debate about how you perpetrate and continue ta lie for months. we have a basic difference of opinion with the
executive branch
. not a republican, not a democratic, but a basic difference. if you lie, deceive or cover-up and that's discovered, then those papers
behind the scenes
become very appropriate to be seen by the branch. i'm one of those people that very strongly supports that the deliberative process in the ordinary course is not something we should be asking for. but when the wheels come off, when in fact, people make a decision to give us something that's false and it's shown to be false and then particularly if there's false statements to
congress
, of course we have an obligation to look at it and then does appropriately include those e-mails, and in this case, you've got 12 changes. ambassador
pickering
has every right and obligation to look at every one of them and we have every obligation to look over his shoulder and see what was independent, what was given. now, ambassador
pickering
has said he's been given all of the documents and access to all of the people. well, we haven't and we're the coequal branch. he was simply acting as an appointee of the secretary.

>>what diagnose secretary of state
hillary clinton
failed to disclose or fail to do that makes her a target for you?

>>hillary clinton
's not a target.
president obama
's not a target. the target is how did we fail three different ways? fail to heed the warnings of an impending attack, fail to respond properly during the attack at least we skoernl have done better and i think everyone knows that, and then fail to get the truth to the
american people
in a timely fashion.

>>you don't hold the president and the secretary of state responsible for those failings?

>>it's their
administration
, but we have to find out how the did we not get it right before the attack, how did we not get it better during the attack and how did we not get the truth after. if they're involved in it, of course they should be held responsible. but one of the problems with this arb report is, it doesn't seem to find anybody at the
high level
of
state department
or
anyone else
to have failed. and i'm going to tell you something. certainly under secretary kennedy who has not been held accountable, these of his people have been held supposedly accountable, but he was getting the facts on a daily basis and one of the questions is, isn't this career professional of 34 years or more, isn't there some accountability? we certainly think that it needs to be asked.

>>you've got republicans talking about this being watergate. one republican raising the specter of impeachment. conservative groups raising money off of the
benghazi
story. are you hurting your own credibility and your own fact finding mission by politically overreaching?

>>i was, then i would be. but i'm not. you know, i investigated the
mineral management service
and made strong are recommendations to the bush administrationing that it needed
real change
because it was a dysfunctional agency. and i'm sad that i didn't stay on top of it more tenaciously because ultimately, the
gulf of mexico
got if i would with oil because that agency wasn't doing enough of its job of making sure the
oil companies
did their job. so i can never again look at something where four men died and i believe needlessly and then say, well, i'm going to just say they've taken care of it, it won't happen again. no,
congress
has an obligation to say, what did you do to make sure it doesn't happen again? and charlene lamb and other low ranking people being reassigned to other jobs, that's not going to prevent these three separate mistakes from happening again.

>>the issue of
security
that you talk about, how do we prevent this from happening again, the reality chairman, as you know, it's happened throughout our recent history. look at attacks on diplomatic compounds or facilities or u.s. interests over the years.

>>you know, gregory hicks, in fact, testified to what happened inch bahrain under his watch. how in fact they prepared for a possible attack and they survived the attack even though they will lost a few cars.

>>look at these attacks on u.s. interests spanning republican and democratic administrations including
president bush
's
administration
. why is there not more of an effort to beef up
security
after these attacks happen? and even, you know, even before this happened in
benghazi
.

>>david
.

>>and isn't this
congress
job to spend the money to beef up
security
?

>>first of all, money is spent by the secretary of state and her people. we an appropriatate the money. have i spent over 12 years both on the
intelligence committee
and on the
foreign affairs committee
and now on the oversight committee. i visited countless embassies and consulates. i've seen both
behind the scenes
on the
intelligence committee
and the overt actions of what we do. and we do a great deal. and we do it well. but in areas of
high risk
, in areas like
north africa
and for that matter, sub-
saharan africa
, we're not really prepared for the kind of attacks we're getting. we haven't been since the two bombings of our embassies and then the cole. can we do better, must we do better? yes. but when you have clear signs and you have career professionals asking for more
security
and they're second-guessed for reasons of apparently wanting a normalization, an appearance of normal, that has to be asked. why wouldn't you let the career professionals have their way when they say here's a risk, they tried to kill the ambassador, the british ambassador twice. they blew up the wall at it very facility in
benghazi
two separate times, one they actually breached it, and yet
security
was cut, not increased. that's not about the broad picture. it's about this example of what went wrong.

>>let's not blow things out of proportion. this is a failure, it needs to be investigated. our committee can investigate. now, ambassador
pickering
, his people and he refused to come before our committee.

>>that is not true.

>>we'll get to ambassador
pickering
.

>>we have it in writing and
white house
correspondence. it may not have been his decision but it was the
white house
decision. that has been reversed. we're inviting had imon monday along with admiral
mullen
to go through with his papers a private deposition so we can get the facts in a nonpartisan way. we'll have republicans and democratic.

>>ambassador, you're willing to appear?

>>, of course. i've said the day before the hearings, i was willing to appear to come to the very hearings that he excluded me from. the
white house
--

>>please don't tell me i excluded you.

>>the majority, we were told the majority said i was not welcome at that hearing. i could come at some other time.

>>well, as the ambassador just said, the day before the hearing, if the
white house
said we'd like to have him, there's a procedure. he could have been the democratic witness. and we would have allowed him. the democrats requested no witness. the fact is, we don't want to have a some sort of a
stage show
. we had fact witnesses. they testified. we have the ambassador and admiral
mullen
who conducted and oversaw the -- we're inciting them on monday. we'll go through not in front of the public but in a nonpartisan way
questions and answers
and then obviously, a hearing to follow at an appropriate time. i'm delighted to have a long-serving career diplomat willing to come before us. i don't think it was his decision to say no. but we were told no until just before the hearing

>>let me do this. chairman, stick around for a minute. i want to ask you about this
irs
story. ambassador
pickering
, you led this investigation along with admiral
mullen
. and the criticism about this investigation is, it didn't go far enough. you didn't specifically interview secretary of state clinton. you didn't probe into what she did or did not do in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. you focused on lower level officials and didn't sufficiently address the very point the chairman brings up, which is why wasn't there the sufficient address to the fact that there was a deteriorating
security
situation if
benghazi
?

>>let me say that i hope the chairman has read our report. our report has 29 recommendations. the bulk of them concern the insufficiency of the
state department
's preparation of that post to deal with the
security
challenges. i don't think that there is any other explanation. and i can't believe that in fact, he still sits here and makes those charges. the second issue he raised was the seven hours. we looked into this extensively with the military. admiral
mullen
.

>>talking about the night of the attack?

>>the night of the attack in
benghazi
. and admiral
mullen
and i and all the other members of the board concluded, after the testimony in which we interviewed many people, that there was no way that any military activity could have been put in place to deal with that will particular question.

>>chairman of the joint chiefs
and others have said nobody could have gotten there in time.

>>dempsey said so, admiral
mullen
said so.

>>there was no
contingency planning
of a chaotic situation in
north africa
.

>>there was planning and that
contingency planning
helped. it involved the annex coming to help the people who were under attack at the mission. and it was fairly clear that that particular set of activities helped a great deal. we may have had more people killed if that hadn't happened. we've been told that the only witnesses that are of any value are people in
tripoli
. we interviewed everybody still alive on the ground who was at the u.s. mission that night.

>>and that -- ambassador, that's an important point. we've been denied even the names of those individuals. the fact is, our committee wanted to speak to the individuals from
benghazi
. they were neither encouraged nor produced nor even their names made available to us. look, two of the most respected career
people i know
, the ambassador and admiral
mullen
who i've worked with much more closely than the ambassador, i respect them. we have an obligation to look for any of the inconsistencies, and yes, i understand that in seven hours, they look back and say we couldn't have saved those men. the question, one of the questions is, in hour one, who orders were given 0 begin the process? who was put on alert? who was asked? this could have gone on like tehran. this could have gone on for weeks or months. so there's a lot of those questions. all we're really asking is, why is it that the ambassador and the admiral reached a conclusion. we have their output.

>>let's have the ambassador respond to that.

>>you also have access to the classified testimony.

>>actually.

>>but let's, ambassador, we've got the classified report. but we don't have any of the interviews you did. we don't have even -- we don't even have the list of everyone you interviewed.

>>the list of interviewed?

>>i want to get to a larger picture though. excuse me, ambassador. i want to come back to this fundamental question.

>>please.

>>did you not pay sufficient attentioning to and time with the secretary of state.

>>i believe we did. we had a session with the secretary. it took place very near the end of the report. it took place when we had preliminary judgments about who made the decisions, where they were made, and by whom they were reviewed. we felt that that was more than sufficient for the preponderance of evidence that we had collected to make our decisions and you know that our decisions was two of those people should be separated from their jobs. two others failed in their performance.

>>the press
secretary to the presidentjay carney
said back in november, he talked about how changes were made, who made changes to these
talking points
prepared for
congress
and for ambassador rice. this is what he said back on
november 28th
.

>>the
white house
and
state department
have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those
talking points
by either of these two institutions were changing the word consulate to the diplomatic facility because consulate was inaccurate. those
talking points
originated from the
intelligence community
. they reflected the ic's best an assessments of what they thought had happened.

>>we know that's not accurate. we know that in fact, the
state department
, victoria knew land was involved in removing from the
talking points
previous warnings about
security
and references to a
terrorist group
, an
extremist group
being involved in the attack based on what was being reported on the ground and by intelligence. is the
administration
guilty of playing politics with terrorism?

>>with full respect, the accountability review board was there to look at the question of
security
. we did not examine
talking points
after the fact. it was not in our --

>>i'm going to end on this point which is about the
irs
and this revelation. they have apologized for this. what more would you like to see? are you satisfied with the apology?

>>the targeting conservative groups in an election year for
tax exempt status
. you said it all.

>>they targeted conservatives. for
tax exempt status
, but the
bottom line
is they used key words to go after conservatives. this is something you have to institute changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. there las to be accountable the for the people who did it. and
quite frankly
, up until a few days ago, there's got to be accountability for people who were telling lies about it being done and lastly, to be honest, one of the most pest offensive parts is, my committee and
jim jordan
and i instigated this investigation, got the ig to do the investigation before the ig's report comes to the public or to
congress
as required by law. it's leaked by the
irs
to trial to spin the output. this
mea culpa
is not an honest one. the honest one is in fact, let's see the ig report. let's go through it. and then let's just like the ambassador said on the 29 changes which we agree with, let's seats what the instituted changes need to be to make this not happen again.

>>chairman
issa
, ambassador
pickering
, thank very much. we're going to get reaction from the chair of the
senate intelligence committee
, dras
dianne feinstein
of california. plus the alarming number of sexual assaultses in the military. another
big story
this week. what should be done about it? the president weighed in this week. we'll hear what he said plus get perspective from two combat veterans, adam tin zinger of illinois and also joining us
david brooks
of "the new york times"